Job: Bilingual Content Coordinator, Volt Technical & Creative Communication (Washington State)
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Job posting by Lauren Sethney (Niigata-shi CIR, 2000-2003). Lauren serves as the Program Director at the Japan-America Society in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Volt Technical & Creative Communication has a long-term contract position available for a Content Coordinator who is Bilingual in Japanese AND English. The Content Coordinator will be working with the Tech Support group, so the content will be more technical in nature.
Select Duties and Responsibilities:
1. Quality Content Creation
-Use style guide and content creation guidelines to create quality content.
-Maintain style guide and update SharePoint site as necessary.
2. Operational Management
-Monitor the daily bugs and Change Management process.
-Identify Process Improvement areas and discuss with Operational Program Manager.
-Create new/updated Content Report and send to Stakeholders by end-of-business each day.
3. Project KM Collaboration
-Perform project collaboration with Release and Run Program Managers.
-Participate in project meetings as a Representative.
-Identify and collaborate with the necessary stakeholders for feedback and buy-in for each process designed.
For a complete job description and information on application procedures, click here.
Job: Project Leader and Technician (Northeast U.S.)
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Job posting by Lauren Sethney (Niigata-shi CIR, 2000-2003). Lauren serves as the Program Director at the Japan-America Society in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Via Helen Godfrey (JET Participant, 1996-1998)
Job Summary: Formulate, blend and test lubricant additives in greases and oils used in automotive and industrial applications. Make technical presentations and attend meetings of industry organizations, particularly targeting the Asia Pacific region.
Job Responsibilities:
• Act as Project Leader for new product development.
• Evaluate commercial and experimental lubricant additives by Standard ASTM test methods.
• Develop additive formulations that meet customers’ specific requirements.
• Write reports in English and Japanese.
• Give technical presentations in English and Japanese.
• Attend industry organization meetings.
• Conduct all work in accordance with Petroleum Applications Laboratory ISO-9001 quality system procedures.
• Calibrate laboratory equipment and instruments in accordance with ISO-9001 protocol and procedures, including all equipment and instruments that require off-site calibration.
Job Qualifications:
• B.S. degree in a scientific discipline, preferably chemistry.
• 1-2 years experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience in lubricant formulating and lubricant testing a plus.
• Fluent in technical and conversational Japanese and English.
• Up to 20% travel required.
For more information, email Helen Godfrey (hgodfrey@Central.UH.EDU).
Japan Society kicks off annual JAPAN CUTS film fest
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By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.
July is here, and that means hot dogs, fireworks, and a horde of Japanese films served up by New York’s Japan Society for their annual JAPAN CUTS contemporary Japanese cinema festival. Launched at the tail end of the New York Asian Film Festival, Japan Society and NYAFF have teamed to co-present a whopping 24 films from July 1-16.
“JAPAN CUTS presents the roughest, sharpest, and smoothest of today’s cutting-edge Japanese film scene,” notes Japan Society’s chief film curator Samuel Jamier. “This year the lineup includes psycho dramas, thrillers, period pieces, bizarre comedies, refined melodramas, artistically adventurous indies, j-horror, and even anime. But when the lineup came together, I realized a number of these great films were made by female directors or featured a large number of prominent women’s roles and powerful performances by women–a reflection of industry trends in the last ten years, and the impact women have been making in Japan’s film industry. Overall, I like to think this year’s festival is exemplary of where Japanese cinema is today.”
For this week’s list, see the full article here.
Some comic relief via Japanese game show
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From Gail Cetnar Meadows, current Hiroshima-ken JET:
Per Steven’s request, I am re-posting a comment I made on Facebook about the weirdest TV show I’ve seen in Japan yet. Admittedly, I don’t watch a ton of TV here, and maybe this is par for the course in Japan, but this game show still struck me as so bizarre. It went like this:
There were a bunch of guys sitting in a KFC, and they have to order the top 10 most popular dishes at the restaurant. And if they are correct guessing the 10 dishes, they win 1,000,000 yen. But if they order a wrong thing, they have to eat everything they order. And then order again, and just keep trying til they get all 10. So they are sitting around for hours gorging on KFC. And one of the dudes sitting at the table is humongously fat and he’s dressed like a woman. (Why is there always a cross dressed guy on Japanese TV?) One of the guys ate so much he was trying not to barf on the table. And the show is doing close-ups of these KFC menu items like this is some sort of gourmet feast. Like the biggest commercial ever.
Samurai in New York Exhibition Opens in NYC
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By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.
The year 2010 is an auspicious one for New York and Japan. Fifty years ago, Gotham became Tokyo’s first sister city, and 150 years ago this month, a samurai envoy paraded down Broadway after clinching diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Nippon.
To celebrate that distinguished day, tributary events here in New York have included the annual Japan Day @ Central Park on June 6 which recreated the original samurai procession, a special lighting of the Empire State Building on June 16 to commemorate the actual anniversary date, and now, the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition Samurai in New York: The First Japanese Delegation, 1860, on view from June 25 through October 11, with a special gallery tour on Saturday, June 26 hosted by project director Kathleen Benson, Yuko Suzuki of the Consulate General of Japan and Eric Campbell of the consulate’s Japan Information Center.
Read the rest of the article here.
Tom Baker reviews “Crazy Heart” and “Brothers”
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Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.
Recently he reviewed movies, “Crazy Heart” and “Brothers.” He found poetry in both of them. Here are some excerpts:
“Crazy Heart”
Country music singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, sweats like a pig, and urinates into a plastic jug while driving from town to town. As I watched him perform under hot lights at a variety of small and unglamorous venues in the movie Crazy Heart, I could almost smell him. He didn’t smell very nice.
…
On the bright side, Bad’s personal problems are grist for the mill. One of his most popular songs looks back on a dissipated life with the refrain, “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’/for a little while.”
Anyone who doubts that country music is the primary home of modern American poetry should meditate on that line. “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin'” is alliterative and catchy, but also trenchant. And Bad has flown and fallen quite a way…
Read the rest of the review here.
“Brothers”
In William Shakespeare’s play about his life, King Richard II is forced to surrender his crown to his usurper cousin Henry IV. In doing so, Richard compares himself and Henry to two buckets in a well: “The emptier ever dancing in the air,/The other down, unseen and full of water:/That bucket down and full of tears am I,/Drinking my griefs while you mount up on high.”
The title characters in Brothers, although they dwell in an American suburb rather than an English castle, are not unlike the tragic royal cousins.
Sam (Tobey Maguire) is an upstanding husband, father and U.S. marine who is about to be separated from his family for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. On the eve of Sam’s departure, his surly brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), a ne’er-do-well with a drinking problem, rejoins the extended family after a stint in prison…
Read the rest of the review here.
WIT Life #105: Samurai in New York
Anecdote Article, Events, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, Uncategorized, WIT Life Comments Off on WIT Life #105: Samurai in New York
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Last night I had the chance to preview the Samurai in New York: The First Japanese Delegation, 1860 exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. There was a reception to celebrate its opening hosted by Ambassador Shinichi Nishimiya and those affiliated with the museum. In his opening remarks, he detailed how descendants of members of the original 70-plus person delegation were in attendance. One was a woman who currently makes her home in New York, and another was a Buddhist monk who had traveled from Japan. It was a wonderful tribute to the original delegation to have these representatives present.
The exhibit itself, though limited in scope, contains some interesting artifacts. Evidently they had been Read More
A Half-Hearted Defense of the Legal Services Cartel
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Matt Leichter (matt [dot] leichter [at] gmail [dot] com) (Saitama-ken 2003-05) is a renegade attorney who plays by his own rules. He operates his own blog, The Law School Tuition Bubble, where he archives, chronicles, and analyzes the rising cost and declining value of legal education in the United States. He also maintains the “Bankruptcy Legal Topics,” and, “Bankruptcy Billables,” sections for Steven Horowitz’s Bankruptcy Bill.
Wait a second? Why would I defend the ABA when it fails to act on the tuition bubble? I have my reasons between labor cartel and attorney oversupply, and you can read them here.
An International List of Writing Organizations and Opportunities
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Laura Popp (Mie-ken, 2009-Present) is a current JET who writes fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults, and is an occasional playwright/film maker. Her short work includes a short story titled “In theShadow Realm” and a documentary she made in Malawi. To read about her amazing adventures all over Japan, go to her blog at laurajanepopp.blogspot.com.
Here is a practical list of organizations, market guides, and networking opportunities for jump starting your writing career. My apologies that it is heavy on the America and Speculative Fiction side, but that is who I am and what I write, so that is what I know best. But hopefully everyone can find something useful from this list:
WIT Life #104: Of sales tax and soccer
Anecdote Article, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, Uncategorized, WIT Life Comments Off on WIT Life #104: Of sales tax and soccer
WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
A hot issue in Japan right now is PM Naoto Kan’s proposal of doubling the current sales tax of 5% (Coverage from earlier this week in the WSJ can be found here). According to projections, an increase of this amount could lead to an additional 165,000 yen ($1829) from each household annually. Kan has emphasized that he anticipates this being implemented over the next two to three years, but his willingness to even touch this kind of financial reform differs greatly from his DPJ predecessor Yukio Hatoyama (who had promised not to alter the sales tax for four years).
Response to this announcement have been mixed. Surprisingly, a survey carried out by Yomiuri Shimbun found that Read More
Job: Resident Director, Intensive Japanese Language and Area Studies (Osaka)
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Job posting by Lauren Sethney (Niigata-shi CIR, 2000-2003). Lauren serves as the Program Director at the Japan-America Society in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Via Kate Maruyama (Osaka, 2005-2008)
Title: Resident Director, Intensive Japanese Language and Area Studies
Location: Osaka, Japan
Description: The Resident Director (RD) is responsible for managing the CET Japanese Language and Area Studies programs, which operate during the fall, spring and summer terms. The RD reports to the Japan Program Manager based in Washington, D.C. and works with a head teacher, part-time assistant, and staff of OGU’s International Center. Excellent communication and team work skills are essential.
General responsibilities include coordinating all activities, student meals, housing, Japanese roommate selection, and activities. The RD designs and directs each term’s orientation sessions. He/she must meet frequently with CET’s students (both informally and during regular office hours) to evaluate their goals, progress and adjustment. The RD is responsible for the programs’ operating budgets and financial reports.
Additionally, the RD must work together with the head Japanese language teacher to ensure the quality of the language lessons, assist in developing creative means of achieving language goals, and provide feedback.
Candidates are advised that this is a time-consuming, challenging position. We therefore discourage those interested in pursuing their own research projects in Osaka from applying. CET is seeking a candidate willing to commit to two years in Japan.
To Apply: See the complete job description and how to apply on our website: www.cetacademicprograms.com. Navigate to “employment opportunities” under the “alumni” drop down menu. Application materials must be received by July 5 for consideration.
Job: Administrative Assistant, Invesco (Dallas)
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Job posting by Lauren Sethney (Niigata-shi CIR, 2000-2003). Lauren serves as Program Director at the Japan-America Society in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Via Michelle Tillis, Invesco
GENERAL PURPOSE OF POSITION
This position requires one to work in a team position to support the Managing Director and investment team of the Real Estate Securities department and provide translation as needed for various documents and presentations.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
*Serve as an administrative teammate with other administrative personnel.
*Coordinate meeting schedules for the investment team.
*Coordinate travel arrangements to include Asia, Australia, Europe, etc.
*Provide basic research support such as running routine reports and performing certain data entry tasks
*Prepare agenda package for Monthly Real Estate Securities Management Committee Meetings
*General administrative duties that include drafting correspondence, mail distribution, faxing, copying, filing, ordering of office supplies, etc.
*Back-up duties that include answering and screening Managing Director’s calls, maintaining department calendar, scheduling meetings, coordinating U.S. travel, catering, etc.
*Upkeep of various databases
*General file maintenance
*Coordinate with product management and graphics departments for various marketing materials required for meetings, conferences, etc.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
*MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH SCHEDULING INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS AND TRAVEL.
*BILINGUAL SKILLS (JAPANESE/ENGLISH OR PORTUGUESE/ENGLISH) PREFERRED.
*Minimum 3 years secretarial/administrative support experience.
*Must have experience supporting multiple high level executives.
SKILLS:
-Fluent in English and it is highly desirable to have foreign language skills in Japanese or Portuguese ‘ both written and verbal
-Advanced computer skills in Microsoft Office 2003: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access.
-Proven organizational skills.
-Proven communication skills, both verbal and written.
-Proven client service/communication skills.
-Ability to prioritize work.
-Ability to work with others at all levels.
-Ability to meet tight deadlines.
Please send resume and cover letter to : michelle.tillis@invesco.com
WIT Life #103: The Cove
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
An article in today’s Times discusses the reaction of right wingers in Japan to The Cove, a documentary about dolphin hunting in a place called Taiji. This group, 右翼 or uyoku, are said to number about 10,000 throughout the country and have been responsible for various acts of violence such as torching the houses of politicians whose views they don’t agree with (i.e. regarding visits to Yasukuni Shrine). This time they are protesting outside theaters attempting to show this film, insisting that it will “poison Japan’s soul.” However, there is significant interest in this doc as evidenced by the turnout of over 700 people for a one-time screening in Tokyo last week, where about 100 had to be turned away due to lack of space.
Quoted in the article is the documentary filmmaker and author Tatsuya Mori, who I Read More
WIT Life #102: Learning Disabilities in Japan
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
I was very excited to hear from one of my closest college friends that her husband would be having a business trip in Japan. Not only was I happy for him, a fellow classmate as well, to be able experience Japan, but also because of his line of work. Pictured at right, Jonathan Mooney grew up with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia and didn’t learn to read until he was 12. However, he is now an amazing author and public speaker. He has his own non-profit based in California and often travels both domestically and internationally to share his experiences and help children like himself and their families.
Jon has spoken in China before, but this was his first time going to Japan upon the invitation of a professor from Osaka. He will be giving a presentation in Read More
The Charge of the Juris Doctor Brigade
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Matt Leichter (matt [dot] leichter [at] gmail [dot] com) (Saitama-ken 2003-05) is a renegade attorney who plays by his own rules. He operates his own blog, The Law School Tuition Bubble, where he archives, chronicles, and analyzes the rising cost and declining value of legal education in the United States. He also maintains the “Bankruptcy Legal Topics,” and, “Bankruptcy Billables,” sections for Steven Horowitz’s Bankruptcy Bill.
Do you like tables? Not kotatsu! I mean data tables! Ones that show where law schools and law students are geographically saturated in the United States. If you’re considering law school in the U.S., you have to see where not to go.
